1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic device and a method for manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a multilayer ceramic device capable of preventing a function of a device from deteriorating due to occurrence of crack, and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A chip component, such as a general thin film type multilayer ceramic condenser (MLCC) is configured of a device body, an internal electrode, an external electrode, and the like. The device body has a stacked structure of a plurality of dielectric sheets called a green sheet and the internal electrode is provided to each of the dielectric sheets. Further, the external electrode has a structure covering both ends outside the device body while being electrically connected to the internal electrode.
A general multilayer ceramic device is designed to focus on improvement of device characteristics, and therefore has a structure which is relatively vulnerable to a physical pressure or impact, a thermal impact, other vibrations, and the like. Therefore, when the physical or thermal impact is applied to the multilayer ceramic device, cracks occur in the device body. When the cracks mainly start from a surface of the device body which is adjacent to an end of the external electrode and then progress to an inside of the device body and the cracks progress to an active region within the device body, the multilayer ceramic device is no longer difficult to perform a function as a device.
In order to prevent the chip component from being damaged due to the crack, there is a technology of allowing the external electrode to have a structure which may absorb the external impact. To this end, the external electrode may have a structure which includes an internal metal layer directly covering the device body, an external metal layer exposed to the outside, and an intermediate layer interposed between the internal metal layer and the external metal layer. However, since the intermediate layer is made of a mixed material of metal and polymer resin, the polymer resin is thermally decomposed during a reflow or wave soldering process for mounting the chip component to space between the internal metal layer and the intermediate layer, thereby causing an internal void. The void and a delamination phenomenon which are not caused by a driving of an electronic device in which the chip component is mounted but are caused by the chip component itself reduce the function of the chip component.
As another method, there is a method of blocking a progress of cracks by providing a reinforcing pattern within the device body which is adjacent to a point at which the cracks frequently occur. However, in order to apply the reinforcing pattern, the number of stacked patterns within the device body is increased, such that manufacturing cost of the device may be increased and a dielectric thickness may be relatively decreased, thereby making it difficult to implement the high-capacity device.